Teaching Boys to be Men

As a parent I strive to do the best I can when it comes to raising my child. Give him an opportunity to be successful and reach for the stars. I want to be supportive, dependable and consistent in his life. Raising children can be difficult but in my opinion its a wonderful experience. I say difficult because you know every decision you make effects your children and you want to do the best possible job.

I feel that in the African American community people put so much pressure on little boys about being men. We want our boys to not be "weak", by showing emotion, we put more focus and attention in protecting the females and leave the boys with the mentality they should be able to figure out life on their own. I have seen many occasions where parents have enforced school and education on their daughters and have not done the same with their sons. I think if we are to blame the plight of the Black man on anyone, we should first look at the parents and the community. We don't put emphasis on boys, we don't cater to them like we do our girls. We don't take the extra time needed to help them in school. But I do notice that when boys play sports that's when they get the most attention as opposed to when they do well in school. We expect our boys to fend for themselves and learn to be men but no one wants to teach them HOW to be men.

I bring this fact up because I have a 14 month old boy, he is very affectionate. His father and I are affectionate towards him, we try to teach him to be kind to others. Although he's 14 months old hes beginning to understand. The other day I took my son to the park like I usually do. There was little girl at the park of another race with her mother. My son walked up to the little girl, I instinctively jumped up because I know some parents are not comfortable with other children around their kids especially ones they do not know. The mother looked at me and was like Oh no hes fine, so my son proceeded to point to her eyes and say I,I,I (it sounds just like that lol) I smiled and reassured him he was right those were her eyes. He pointed to her mouth and say BA BA (the sound you make when you kiss lol) and I smiled next he leaned over and hugged her. I noticed that as my son leaned in to hug the little girl her mother grabbed at the back of his shirt.
Now I didn't want to make a scene, I just said Hug to reassure my son he hadn't done anything wrong. I grabbed him and proceeded to take him to the other side of the park.
I try not to let people (ignorant people) upset my mood. Did she really think my son would hurt her child after he had been so nice and gentle? He had reached for the little girls hands. He's an only child and loves interacting with other children. I wonder if the stereotype of black man being mean, stoic and aggressive has trickled all the way down to our babies????
I pray not because if this woman was afraid of my child that is 14 months old, how do other people in society feel? Is this the reason why so many of our youth are failing in schools because teachers are afraid of them?
So I am asking parents out there to evaluate how we are raising our young men, are we giving them that little bit of extra attention they need, are we teaching them to be strong men, are we teaching them that its OK to be affectionate and its necessary to gentlemen?


So what do you think?